My name is Rima Imad Fadallalah. I am from Dearborn, Michigan and I decided to pursue a career in Digital Media after I left the classroom. I was a teacher and started my career in education. A lot of my lessons as an English teacher with high schoolers were bringing in things that were happening in culture and in the world into our discussions. I really wanted my students to walk out of the classroom, not just obviously able to critically read and write, but also able to critically analyze the world around them. Ultimately, what I learned through talking to my students was that mainstream media had such an impact on the things that they were talking about, the things that were relevant to them, and the way that they conceptualize their identity.
At the time I was 21 years old and it really made me think about the things that really impacted my own identity. Here I am as a teacher, trying to guide my students through that. They taught me that I actually needed to go back and think about what were some of the most pivotal moments in guiding my identity as an Arab American, as a Muslim American.
What I realized is that most of the media influences, if not all, we're extremely negative. One quick story: The first time that I actually held my identities object and talked about them was when reporters came and interviewed my family about being both Arab and American post-9/11. They had good intentions, but the way that the title of the article was written implied that we had some audacity to consider ourselves both Arab and American post-9/11. There were a few situations like that where my identity was put under the spotlight and in mainstream media in an extremely negative way and therefore created a shameful or negative connotation around being Arab and Muslim.
I grew up in a household where those identities were nurtured and I was taught to be proud of being Arab (I was taught to never change the pronunciation of my name for example). I had very good influences around me. Yet in the mainstream media, I was kind of hit over the head, over and over and over again with negative messages. So, I pursued a career in business and, more specifically, in Media and Entertainment because I feel strongly about changing that reality for the next generation of Arab American. I want to make sure that my future kids can grow up seeing not just positive messages about us, but at least real messages. Because right now, much of the content that we are seeing isn't just negative, it's blatantly inaccurate. There's a lack of truth out there about people who look like me, and telling the truth about us is what drives my career path.
I'll begin with the end and then I'll go back in time.
Today, our media company Arabize Media (formerly known as Thawra Network) envisions becoming the largest and most trusted network of brands for Arabs in diaspora. Like any marginalized community, trust is huge with Arab Americans. Our first brand under Arabize is the Dearborn Girl podcast. Dearborn Girl started while I was in my first year at Ross. I was driving to and from Dearborn every day to go study at Ross and when I would come back home I was just talking to a lot of people in the community and wanting to create something that outlasted my time at home. I wanted a platform that made my community feel proud of being from the largest concentration of Arabs in America; that's something that we didn't grow up hearing about or seeing being from Dearborn.
I'm going to separate this question a little bit. The industries that I define, like you said, Digital Media and Entertainment, is definitely one that I pay attention to. I define Arab America as an industry in itself that I'm constantly studying because there haven't been and aren't enough things, whether it be media platforms or products, targeting Arab-Americans. There's a lot of opportunity to get the attention of people in my target audience just by doing anything targeted towards them. I'll get into that in a second.
As for Media and Entertainment, I think that Media and Entertainment is really trying to be more inclusive of all identities except for mine. I watch a lot of TV. I'm constantly watching Netflix. I'm constantly watching whatever new series or movies are out. I joke that it's like studying myself. I love binge watching stuff, but I really do study. I'm constantly paying attention to the nuances in different racial or sexual identities, cultural identities, whatever it may be. I'm seeing such an awesome trend in bringing in different types of identities and complicating those identities. However, I still don't see myself represented and think that is infuriating to a lot of Arabs who are also consuming this media and are really excited about all of these different stories that are being told, but still frustrated that our time hasn't come yet. On one hand, it's getting a lot more inclusive and I would even say there's a lot of pressure on these companies to be very inclusive. However, I don't see them feeling the pressure to include us and that's pressure that I would love to exert in my lifetime.
As far as Arab-Americans as an industry, what I'm noticing being in L.A. is that we're literally everywhere. Unfortunately, I just don't see us having that place right now, whatever that place is or that thing where we feel like our stories are being told or our identities are at the very least being represented. What I do see, and I specifically see this on TikTok and where a lot of Gen Arab Americans are hanging out, is that they're fed up with it. They're ready.They're talking about their identities. They're making people distinguish between their identities and other identities that we constantly are getting confused with. This younger generation is definitely ready for something like what we're building and that's super exciting for me.
I think whether they're trying to do something similar to what I'm doing, build a platform for marginalized voices or just pursue a career in Media and Entertainment, I think the best advice I would say is that you're not crazy. This is probably what I needed to hear when I was in my first year. The things that you are envisioning or those ideas that are in your head are there for a reason. You're not crazy. If you are identifying a problem that needs to be solved then chances are you just need to spend your time thinking about the different ways that you can solve that problem because you will land on something. If you care enough about that problem, there will be something that works that will enable you to solve that important problem.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a lot of temptation at a program like Ross with a lot of really successful students. Some of them come in knowing exactly what their career path is going to look like. Some of them come in thinking they do and it creates a lot of temptation to make sure that your elevator pitch sounds like something other people think is normal. I can tell you that I spent two years with the most crazy elevator pitch and lack thereof and nobody thought it was normal. Some people were inspired by the fact that it sounded crazy or different. Other people just thought I was crazy and that was that. I think the moral of that is that I had to really detach myself from other people's opinions of what I was doing, specifically in an industry like Media and Entertainment where really anything goes and anything is possible. A lot of the things that we thought were crazy several years ago are now the next big thing. I think somebody pursuing this career path specifically needs to be an independent thinker and needs to get in the habit of kind of blocking out the noise around them in a healthy way because some of that noise, unintentionally and maybe with good intention, is trying to mold you into more of the same and that's clearly not what you're trying to do if you're pursuing a career in this industry.
To learn more about Rima's journey from Ross to L.A. and all the amazing work she's doing on behalf of the Arab-American community, make sure to connect with/follow her on LinkedIn or on Instagram @iamtherimix